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Monday, April 15, 2013

Love this quilt today from Cathy at Blueberry Patch, really striking. I've never done an all solids quilt but I get tempted when I see awesome finishes like this! I've had an idea for one for my husband for a while, maybe I'll finally get around to it in cold DC! :) Cathy has a lot of great finishes and she shares a lot of fun fabric and sewing projects on Blueberry Patch. Thanks for sharing today!

I finished this the other day and hung it up on the barn for a few pictures. This is Inspired Broken Diamonds and I am calling it that because I was inspired to make it after seeing this quilt on Kati's blog From The Blue Chair. I found her Broken Diamonds quilt mesmerizing and I knew that I had to try it. It took me awhile to get around to it but I did.

So what did I do? Lot of solids cut into strips in a variety of widths. The strings are paper pieced in matching quarters and then sewn together with other matching quarters. There are no repeats. The "diamonds" are all different sizes for the most part. Then the fun came when I put them together. That was a bit of a construction project! I had to sash the blocks in a way that allowed them to fit together. Once that happened, I filled in the empty space with giant triangles and we were away to the races. That was until I realized I had goofed with the orientation of the quilt and I had to un-sandwich it and tweak the quilt a bit so I had the blocks in the right orientation. Long story. Short story is it makes me happy. There is one wee diamond in a different orientation. Can you see it? That was an oops but it is an okay oops. The quilt advisor (a.k.a. Husband) thought the diamonds should have their lighter sides to the left as if the sun might be on them. Do you see what I mean? All the diamonds are in that orientation except the one little oops. That one slipped by me somehow!

The quilting is straight lines about an inch apart, in Aurifil 50 wt in white and I think it looks just great! The binding is Kona Charcoal and I used some leftover solids on the back with Ikea's Britten Numbers. So much fun!!!!! I was stitching the binding when I noticed the number forty two on the back! Forty two is such an auspicious number! The answer to the secret of the universe, right? Nothing like a literary reference on a quilt! (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)